Alternate Reality, or Monica's World
by planet p
Summary: In another world... What will be the same? What will be different? Miss Parker/Sam
1. Chapter 1

**Alternate Reality, or Monica's World** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

**Author's Note****s** An alternate reality fic – fairly AU, VERY AU!

* * *

Monica Raines' father, Mr. Parker, was Chairman of the branch of the corporation where she worked in Blue Cove, Delaware. Monica's mother, Catalina Parker, was head of the branch's medical arena, Med Wing Director. And Monica, herself, was head of a Retrieval team engaged in tracking down and retrieving Alexander, a Tower Pretender who had been assigned to their branch. Monica and her team had been tracking Alexander ever since his escape ten years earlier, in 1996.

Her husband, Samuel Raines, was team leader of a Level 5 Sweeper team, a team of four highly-trained Sweepers, including himself, who made up the tactical half of her Retrieval team. Leon and Zander, the two other male Sweepers, were trained simply as L5 Sweepers, but Bridget, the only female Sweeper on her husband's team, was also trained as an assassin, or a Cleaner.

The other half of Monica's team, and an unequal half, consisted of Sidney Green, a psychologist, and Mr. Broots, a tech, who handled the technology side of things.

At home, Monica had two teenage children. 18-year-old Zilla Ray wore black clothes and makeup and preferred to be known as Shadowray or Shadow, which she had discovered her first name, Zilla, meant. Zilla Ray's two best friends were Georgia May and Mia. Both girls from Zilla Ray's high school and neither were Gothic. Year younger Roxbury had been born with a twin sister, Grace, who'd died a week later, though he still talked about her as though he'd known her all his life and as though her death might have been a year ago, much less seventeen years ago, and called her Gracie.

Monica had a brother, Knox, who'd been born in 1971, and was eleven years younger than her. When her mother had brought Knox home, she'd told Monica about her other brother, the brother she'd had before, her twin brother, who'd been born dead. Monica remembered that Catalina had told her his name, though she didn't remember what it had been, she'd been so excited when her Momma and Knox had come home – she'd been told that her mother was dead, and she hadn't even known that her mother was pregnant – that she'd promptly forgotten all about ever having another brother.

Samuel's older sister, Ann, was Broots' wife, though not his 19-year-old daughter, Mirabelle's mother. Samuel's parents, Bill and Edna, were both dead. His father had died in 1971, and his mother in 1972, two months after her husband. Ann had been sixteen at the time, and Samuel fourteen, and they had been taken in by the Center, the corporation Monica worked for, and which Samuel's father had worked for as a psychiatrist and as Med Wing Director.

Following her mother's suicide, Ann had been mentally unstable for a long time, but she had recovered and met Broots, whom she had married in 1999 and had supported through the battle to gain custody of his then 12-year-old daughter from his ex-wife, who'd had a gambling problem and had been gambling away the money from his payments which were for his daughter and neglecting their daughter.

Monica's office was on the second floor, Level 1, and featured a window with a view of the parking lot and the grass beyond the parking lot, all the way to the large wrought iron gates, small in the distance, and was within five offices of Sidney's office, down the corridor.

Monica had just celebrated her forty-sixth birthday, and her father had hired her a personal assistant as a special birthday present, in the form of the small, tanned, dark-haired Mona Santalucchi, who was not only nine years her junior, but had a killer figure.

Since Samuel and she had been married in 1982, Monica had always lightened her brown hair to a blonde-ish brown, though she was considering letting it go back to its original dark brown, or getting a new cut, something to outdo stunning Mona, whom she was beginning to dislike more and more as the week dragged on.

* * *

Jared was a Pretender. He had been 'acquired' by the Center in 1962, as a four-year-old, and had been assigned a 'mentor' who'd told him his name was Sidney.

A lot had happened since he'd first come to the Center in 1962. He'd learned all about the anomaly in his genes which made him 'different' – 'special' – and had met other people like himself, who also had the anomaly. Interestingly, the anomaly could be expressed in different forms, not just in the expression he had which made him a Pretender and Sidney said meant he was a genius. Timothy was classified as an Empath, but he was really a psychometrist, which meant, to simplify matters, that he could receive psychic messages from objects he touched or came into contact with, even people.

Jared remembered that Raines had been Timothy's mentor and had made Timothy into Angel when he was eleven years old, which was supposed to make him a better Empath, but had really made him useless at everything else and not much better at Empathy even. When Raines had died, the Center had left Timothy as Angel, the way Raines had made him, for a while, until they began to see that he was really no better as Angel than he had been as Timothy and had decided to attempt to rehabilitate him, to make him Timothy again.

Jared and Timothy worked together sometimes on Jared's Sims, or sometimes Jared worked with Keiran, another Pretender who was a year younger than him and whose mentor Raines had also been, and was now a woman named Cromwell, whom Jared had never actually seen, but had heard plenty about.

Jared could not remember his own family, but he knew that Sidney had a family outside the Center and an identical twin brother who also worked for the Center, and who had been Med Wing Director before the car accident Sidney and he had had in 1967, and was named Jake.

Jake was married to a mentor named Maitane, who had been handler to a female Pretender named Arabelle but who Keiran always called Bell when he talked about her. Maitane and Jake had a daughter named Amalia who had married an Arabic man who was a psychiatrist, like both of her parents, and Amalia and her husband had a four-year-old son named Abdulrahman, but whom they called Abdul most of the time.

Sidney had told Jared that Amalia was going to have another baby and that, seeing as it was a girl, her husband and her had decided to name her Rafa, which Jake had gotten upset about because Amalia only ever named her children names that her husband wanted to name them – 'his' names.

Sidney had a son too, though he was older than Abdul – he was 35 – and he was a school teacher. Sidney said his name was Klaus and that his mother's name was Mitchie, and that Mitchie had worked for the Center a long time ago, as a psychologist like him, before Mitchie had went away – Raines had threatened to hurt Sidney if she didn't. Sidney hadn't even known he'd had a child until he'd bumped into Mitchie again after her husband, George's death.

Klaus didn't have any children, which made Jared feel a little bit closer to him, even though he'd never met him, because he didn't either.

Jared had never had a girlfriend, though once he'd met a girl named Monica, whose father was the Chairman. Monica had a husband and two children now, Jared knew.

She was going to bring Alexander, who Jared really thought they'd all do better without, back to the Center and bring back all the DSAs he'd stolen and taken with him when he'd escaped.

Jared had never worked with Alexander, though he knew Keiran had, and the only good thing he could possibly think that Alexander had done had been to run away.

* * *

Hope was a psychiatrist and worked for the Center as a mentor. She was Timothy's handler. She did not tell anyone of course, but she knew why Mrs. Parker had died and had suddenly come back from the dead, plus a baby. She knew that Mrs. Parker had been 'rescuing' children from the Center and that she'd had a contact on the outside who'd been helping her to try to find their families, except Mrs. Parker hadn't been doing this all on her own, she'd had some help.

Jake Green, who was also psychiatrist, had been helping her, though when it had been found out that he had, he'd been allowed to live, though he'd had to give up his position as Director of Med Wing, and he'd had to agree to go along with whatever the Center said or, though it sounded melodramatic, die. Hope knew they'd done it before, that they'd killed people.

They, or rather Mrs. Parker, had killed Raines, who'd also been helping her to rescue the children, though the Center maintained that this had been a ploy leading up to a plan to kill Mrs. Parker and steal her unborn baby, which had gone awry when the baby had been born and Mrs. Parker had shot Raines before he could complete his plan and shoot her.

But after Mrs. Parker had come 'home', they'd killed Raines' wife, Edna, and had covered it up to look like a suicide. Hope knew that the Center had killed Edna Raines so that there would be no obstacles in the way of their plan to acquire Honore Raines, who they'd renamed Ann, and codenamed Honor.

Once, Hope had died. But she'd come back to life, just like Mrs. Parker, except that she'd really been dead, and after that she'd known that Raines was different, that he had the anomaly like Angel/Timothy and Jared, the boys she'd met when she'd been sick who 'lived' at the Center, and Monica, her adoptive sister before she'd died, who she later heard possessed the Inner Sense, the same as her mother (and Knox).

Hope knew that the Center had taken Honore because Mrs. Parker had told them what Raines had been and they'd wanted that for themselves, they'd wanted one they could control, which meant that Edna Raines had had to die. Samuel, Hope supposed they'd always known, was adopted, so there was no chance of his having inherited the anomaly from Raines because he wasn't his biological father.

After that had happened, Hope had decided to become a psychiatrist, and when she'd gotten older, she'd decided that she was going to 'rescue' children – and whoever else needed rescuing – for herself.

A man named Saul Fenigore had also been helping Mrs. Parker to rescue the children, though, like Jake, he'd been persuaded to come back to the Center's side, though, unlike Jake, Hope could see some hope for an ally in Fenigore.

When Honore had first been taken, the Center had been fully interested in developing and harnessing her Healing abilities, but later on, they'd decided that they wanted more than just one Healer, that they wanted her to have a baby, and Jake had been put in charge of this endeavour, having worked at the Center's experimental eugenics facility in Canada before his appointment in Blue Cove which had got both his brother, Sidney, and he, their current jobs.

Sometime later, Honore, now known as Honor, had had two babies, twins, a boy and a girl. The twins had been named Joseph and Ersula and they'd been sent to live with a family on the outside until it was time to call upon them. That family had been named Cox and, when the time had come, the twins had been sent to Africa to work in the African Branch under a man named Adama and his daughter, also named Adama, before returning to Blue Cove, where they'd been born, and taking up posts as joint Deputy Directors of Med Wing six years ago in 2000 at the age of 21.

The reason Hope was hoping that Fenigore could be persuaded to her side was because, though the Center had not asked for a specific donor to be the father of Honor's children, and Jake had covered up who it had really been, Hope knew that it had really been Fenigore.

* * *

Catalina Parker – whose name was really Catherine, but which she'd thought was terribly dated – did not often think about the past. It had been a bad time for her, when her mental illness, which she was now controlling and not letting control her, which she had confused for her 'gift' had basically run her life, and when, on top of that, she'd been manipulated at almost every end.

She did not like to think about how close she had come to dying, or how close her son had come to being taken away from her.

Here, and now, she knew where her children (and her grandchildren) were, and she knew that they were safe and being looked after, that they would have help to turn to if they ever needed it, and that they would have the right kind of help.

She walked into her office, coffee in one hand, and nodded to her secretary, Yang Ling, who had tried to talk her unsuccessfully into calling her Lucy (like all her 'friends'!), and sat down at her desk.

She did not like to think of the past because then she would have to think about the many things she saw now she could have done better, the many traps she could have avoided, and because then she would have to think about the many things that might, but ultimately had not, have been.

She loved and cared for her husband, just as she loved and cared for her children, but not in the same way, and not in the same way she had loved and cared for Sidney, who, though she would never tell her daughter or son – who didn't even suspect that their father might not be their father, that he might not have been able to have children – was their real father, and that they had a half brother named Klaus who was a high school teacher.

As almost unbearable as it was to think about what might have been between Sidney and herself and how they might have been a family, it was equally unbearable to think about her other family, to think about her twin brother, Benjamin Miller, who she'd had to say some terrible, horrible, unforgivable things to to keep safe, to keep out of the web of the Center.

So she told herself that she wouldn't think of those things, that she wouldn't think of the past, and that she would only think of now, and of the future, of her children's and her grandchildren's futures. And she told herself that she had made the right decision, that she had done the right thing, that her husband loved and cared for her just as much as she did for him, and loved and cared for their children just as much as she did.

And most of the time she managed just that.

* * *

Mona was on a mission. She was on a deadly, undercover mission to infiltrate the enemy's camp and rescue her brothers and bring her family back together. Her name wasn't even Mona. It was Emma. Except she couldn't tell anyone this, just as she couldn't tell anyone about her dangerous, secret mission.

Mona's brothers had been stolen from her parents, who were also their parents, when they'd been very young. Keiran had been one-year-old, and Jared four. Mona's parents had tried to get their sons back, but they hadn't really been any match for a corporation as big and as powerful as the Center, and when Mona had been born her parents had split up, so that she could be safe, because the Center hadn't known about her or else they would have come for her too.

Mona and her mother, Margaret Joan, or MJ, had had to move around a lot, and it had been hard to just survive, until MJ had met Earle, and Earle had kept them both safe for a while, and Mona had had a baby sister, who MJ had named Earlene, after her father, because she always knew that she couldn't stay with Earle because she loved Mona's father, and even though she'd mucked up and she'd had Earlene, she still hoped that Mona's father and her could some day be a family again, with all of their children – and Mona had the same hope.

Earlene had a young daughter, Aeon, who wasn't special at all the way Mona's brothers and Earlie's half brothers were, but who was special just the same, and just as special and just as dear in Mona's heart. And one day, when they were all a family again, Mona promised herself that she would have her own child, that she would have her own family, and that she would find someone to love just as much as her mother loved her father.

* * *

Broots knew what everyone, or almost everyone, thought of him. That he didn't have much punch, that he was a pushover, that he was strange, weird, and absurd, that he had strange hobbies and obsessions, and that he dressed and talked and acted and walked just as strange. And everyone, or almost everyone, called him Broots, or Mr. Broots.

Ann, his second wife, was the only one who ever called him, annoyingly, by his first name, Heinz. Apart from her, who he was always telling, whenever he ever wanted to tell someone his first name, he always told them that it was Lars, which was sort of like a nickname that he had adopted for himself and which he liked much better than Heinz.

Of course, his marriage to Ann was no more than an arrangement, a convenient business arrangement for the Center, and an arrangement, for Broots, that he and his daughter keep their lives.

Ann was one of their special children, or had been one of their special children, Broots knew, like Alexander, though he was not sure if she was exactly like Alexander or more like Timothy. He had been chosen as her husband, he knew, because he had been vulnerable, because he had been a pushover and he hadn't had any punch, and because he had left his bases open for attack when he'd had a daughter, whom, far from planning for, he'd only discovered he'd had two years earlier.

And now he'd done it again, left himself open for attack. He'd had an affair – was still having an affair, really – with Bridget, a dyed-blonde Sweeper on Alexander's Retrieval team with him, and she'd had a son, whom she'd named Henry, after him.

Henry was six and had red hair and blue eyes. His daughter, Mirabelle, had auburn hair and blue eyes, and he always thought they looked a lot alike, like a real brother and sister, even though they both got their looks from their mothers, and not from him, so they didn't really look much alike in reality.

He didn't love Ann, and he didn't know if he loved Bridget or not, though he thought that he did. If all the confusion over that wasn't bad enough – he couldn't tell Mirabelle that he'd married Ann to keep them safe, to keep them alive, that he'd had to marry Ann, that it was his fault for putting her in that position (or any child of his, whether he knew of their existence or not) the moment he took a job with the Center – he had to act as though he did love Ann for whatever reason the Center wanted him to and hadn't told him. He just hoped they wouldn't want Ann and he to have a baby next, because that would be another dangerous liability waiting to be exploited to their heart's content whenever they felt like it, as if it wasn't ready, and he hoped that Bridget cared about Henry as much as he did, though he'd only ever seen pictures of him, and that she wouldn't run to the Center at the earliest opportunity and sell their son out.

He hoped that Bridget felt something of what he felt for her.

* * *

_Um, dare I write it… TBC?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Alternate Reality, or Monica's World** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

When Catalina walked into the conference room and saw the two men waiting for her, she felt sick, utterly sick, and she wanted to turn around and walk right out again.

It wasn't Joseph, she didn't mind Joseph really, it was the man standing with him, the man hoping to come to work for the Center in the very near future.

Yang Ling had told her that he was a nurse and that he was 46, and that was all she had known at the time.

Catalina forced herself, still feeling sick to her stomach, to walk across the room and up to the two men and introduce herself to the unfamiliar man, after which they all sat down to talk about the job opening, and Catalina asked some questions which the man answered and they had a look through his résumé and discussed his work history and his previous jobs, and Catalina heard that the man was diabetic and that he had epilepsy.

She was tempted then to send him away, to make up something, anything to send him away. She could hardly stand to look at him. He was Benjamin! Except he wasn't. He could not be. Benjamin would be much older, her own age, which was 68.

Which meant that he was – that he had to be – Benjamin's son, and her nephew – and he wanted a job with the Center!

She was suddenly angry, and still felt very sick, and she wanted to jump to her feet and yell at him until he left, convinced she was a madwoman, she didn't care, she just wanted him to be gone.

Though his had been weaker than her own, Benjamin had also had the Inner Sense, and she could not think about her brother losing a child like he had lost her.

She would not stand for it, she decided, she would tell him – he had said his name was Bobby – to go, that she wasn't going to give the job to him, and that he should go and look for work elsewhere, she simply didn't get a good feeling from him, and his résumé was doing little, if nothing, to reassure her.

She began to open her mouth to speak, but the words stuck in her throat, and she thought again of Benjamin. Bobby had been born the same year as her own daughter, Monica, though she had not known of Benjamin ever having a girlfriend, let alone a child, or even a secret child, during the time that she had known him.

They had spoken of their sister, Dorothy, who was ten years older than them, and whom Benjamin had hoped to one day find, and she had spoken of Monica, whom Benjamin had met several times when he had come to Delaware to see her and try to persuade her to leave her husband, though she had told him not to – not to come to Blue Cove, and not to try to persuade her to leave her husband – and never once had Benjamin mentioned a girlfriend, or a woman he'd dated, briefly or otherwise, or a son, and never once had Catalina's Inner Sense, which was much stronger than her older twin brother's, ever given her any indication of any such things.

She'd always thought that maybe Benjamin didn't like women, though she preferred to think that he was just shy, or that he was waiting to meet the right woman, after all, he didn't seem any more particularly attracted to men than he was to women. Back then, he'd been a vet, and he'd always cared a lot about the animals that were brought into the clinic where he worked, and he could always remember a lot about the animals, he was just not so good with the people that had come with them.

Catalina mentally shook herself and stood, telling Bobby that they'd get back to him as soon as possible as to whether he'd gotten the job or not and they said goodbye and Catalina watched him walk out of the room before turning back to Joseph to ask his opinion of Bobby, and what sort of a name Bobby was for an adult.

* * *

Monica listened to Mona telling her about a man she'd met in the elevator who was good looking but had had creepy blue eyes, and willed the telephone to ring, so Mona could tell the person on the other end about the good looking man with the creepy eyes instead, then she grew suspicious and narrowed her eyes.

She dug a hand into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out her leather wallet and flipped it open and flashed a photograph in front of Mona's face. She wasn't talking about this man, was she?

She could see immediately by the look in Mona's eyes, before she even answered, that she'd never met her husband, and dreaded Mona's answer, as though it was an affirmation of her own disapproval at her unexpected paranoia.

"No," Mona answered, wide-eyed and suddenly staring.

Monica flipped the leather wallet shut and tucked it away again. "My husband, Samuel," she answered simply, her voice matter-of-fact.

Mona seemed to pull herself from the trance she'd been in, and nodded quickly, somewhat shakily, before silently returning to her work.

Monica wanted to kick herself, but at the same time she felt strangely powerful, strangely satisfied.

* * *

James Hooper worked as a lawyer in the city, though he often travelled 'home' to his hometown, a small Nebraskan farming township, to visit his ex-wife, Holly, and their children: 14-year-old Heather June – named June for his mother, who'd died when he'd been a four-year-old – and 8-year-old twins Hamish and Shamus.

Holly had been his high school sweetheart, but even though he'd dated Holly for two years during high school, he'd really been in love with his once best friend, Bobby's, girlfriend, Perfecta, who, in truth, had also been his best friend, but who had taken Bobby's side when they'd stopped being friends.

James had always known why she'd done what she'd done, it wasn't so much that she'd been in love with Bobby, but that she loved him, because she cared and she'd thought that Bobby had needed her much more than James had, which was fair – Bobby had had learning problems, and other problems too, and James had never managed to articulate how he felt about her, let alone tell her.

Nonetheless, Perfecta and he had ended up together one night – as though Fate had heard his unspoken prayers and drawn them together – and Perfecta had become pregnant, but he'd ruined it when he'd gotten scared, scared that he'd be so soon 'tied down' – just out of high school, and he'd be a father – so he'd talked her into having an abortion – his father, who was a doctor, had done the procedure; the child, if it had survived, would have been 28 this year – so he'd left Perfecta and the small township he'd grown up in to study law in the city and when he'd come 'home' a year later, Holly had been there to greet him, and they'd been married a year later in December of 1979.

Six years ago, he'd divorced Holly after twenty years of marriage and then, a year after that, he'd met Perfecta again and Alfonzo had been born, and they'd been married a month after. It always made him smile when he thought about how Perfecta called their son – who was five this year – Alf, and how he called him Alfie, and then, how when Perfecta's older brother – who worked in the Navy – came to visit, he called the little boy Alfonzo.

It wasn't that he hadn't cared for Holly, or for their children, but when the twins had been born, it had all just become too much, because he'd realised that he didn't love Holly as much as he should, and that the only reason he'd stuck it out had been for Heather June, and later, for her brothers too.

And as strange as it sounded, he was happy now.

He glanced away from the road in front of him briefly to watch the woman sitting beside him, peaceful in sleep, and smiled, knowing that on the backseat, Alfonzo had fallen asleep watching his favourite _The Mighty Ducks_ DVD.

* * *

At 9 P.M., Monica talked to Catalina on the telephone for half an hour, and then talked to Knox for a further half an hour, annoyed that her father had not been able to come to the telephone to talk to her for even two minutes.

At 10 P.M., she complained to Samuel that she didn't see the personal assistant thing as working – Mona was impossible! – she'd just start talking about some man she'd seen somewhere and telling her all about how she thought he'd have been good looking, if he hadn't had such creepy-looking eyes.

Half an hour later, she walked to Zilla Ray's bedroom to wish her goodnight, and then walked to Roxbury's bedroom to do the same and ended up standing in front of an almost closed door, listening to a conversation Roxbury was apparently having with his dead twin.

She left, thinking that not only was she going mad – her son was going mad! Or maybe he already was mad, and she just hadn't been attentive enough – cared enough – to notice.

At 11 P.M., she rang Catalina and conveyed what she'd heard whilst she'd been standing at the door and her fear that her son was going mad, promptly bursting into tears moments later.

Catalina, of course, was ready with an answer. Roxbury's therapist had obviously discussed this with him and thought that it was best that if he felt like talking to Grace that he should be allowed to, even though he fully understood that she was dead. It was a way for him to come to terms with his feelings and thoughts and a way for him to face the matters he saw as problem areas in his life and work through them, she was sure.

Monica sniffed and stopped crying and convinced herself that yes, her mother was right, that was exactly what it was, of course. There was nothing to worry about because Roxbury's therapist had said that it was alright, and he was the expert, so it must have been alright.

Half an hour later, when Samuel came upstairs to bed, she told him that she thought – she was under the strong suspicion, at least – that Mona had serious underlying issues that needed to be addressed if she was ever going to attempt a committed relationship with the hope of it lasting any length of time.

* * *

Catalina stomped into her office and slammed the door. She didn't care who saw or what they thought. She hated Joseph!

She marched across the room and instructed Yang Ling to get her husband on the telephone and then spent ten minutes arguing with him on speaker phone. There was no way in Hell that Joseph could overrule her like that!

Mr. Parker told her, voice patient, that it had in fact been Dr. Brown's decision to employ – there was a pause to consult some file, some sheet of paper; questioningly – Robert and not that of Dr. Cox, nor – another pause – Dr. Cox.

Catalina seized the receiver and slammed it down, ending the telephone call, and proceeded to attempt to restrain herself from jumping up and down in a tantrum and screaming incoherently, but which came out like an awful – somewhat watered down, very painful – imitation of just that.

Yang Ling sat pressed into her chair behind the desk, mortified, and too petrified to move.

Catalina, finally realising that she had no power to object to the Tower doctor's request, calmed down and then informed Yang Ling that she would be leaving her office for a coffee, before pulling the door handle and marching out of the room without waiting for Yang Ling's response.

* * *

Catalina did not walk to the dining hall on SL-1 for a coffee, or to one of the coffee/break rooms or coffee machines, but made her way directly to her daughter's office, where she instantly dismissed Mona from the office, and started to explain – in a rant – how Brown had deliberately undermined her position as Med Wing Director and how she didn't even know _why_ he had bothered to employ anyone as Director at all when he was the one making the critical decisions, pressing the buttons! She felt so used, like nothing more than a puppet, a scapegoat!

Suddenly realising that Mona had not left the room, she turned to the small woman with a scowl. "You're fired!" she barked. "Get out!"

Monica didn't do anything for a moment, warming to the idea that Mona would soon be gone forever, then jumped to her feet, realising that her mother didn't really have that power, and that even if she did, Mona hadn't done anything really bad, and that Catalina couldn't just decide to fire her because she was mad at someone else for their stupid – bad – judgement. "Don't go anywhere!" she barked to Mona.

Catalina glared at her daughter, and then stormed out of her office too, slamming the door after her. Monica could hear her loud scowl from the other side of the door: "My own child!"

Monica returned her attention to an at once confused and shocked Mona. "You're not fired," she told her. "Keep working!"

She stormed out of the office after her mother.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Monica found Catalina sitting in the dining hall with Jake, drinking coffee.

Jake glanced at her as she approached.

Catalina made a face and placed her coffee down in front of her. "I'll buy her a box of chocolates," she said hurriedly. "She won't even remember it in a week."

Monica huffed and walked away from the table, returning later with a coffee and sitting down at the table beside her mother.

* * *

Mona fell down in Monica's chair and stared blankly in front of her for a minute. Then she stood and walked across the room to the door and walked out of the office.

She walked down the corridor to the elevators and hit the button for the elevator and when it arrived, stepped inside, instantly detesting the muzak that abruptly engulfed her.

She stood staring at the elevator doors for a long moment, before glancing at the man standing beside her and realising that she'd seen him before. "People around here are mad," she told him casually. "Get out whilst you can."

The man frowned, confused.

Mona laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth, still laughing.

"Are you okay?" the man asked, and Mona stopped laughing, though she really wanted to point and laugh at his accent.

Silently, she nodded.

The man smiled painfully, as though he wasn't sure whether to believe her or not, and returned his attention to the keypad.

"I'm a personal assistant," Mona said. "What are you?"

The man glanced at her, frowning again. "A nurse," he replied.

Mona sighed, planting a hand over her chest. "Oh good!"

"Are you okay?" the man asked again.

"I'm not sure," Mona answered, "but I think so." She wished the man, who was now staring at her, as though for looking for some indicator that she really was okay, would stop staring at her. His blue eyes were very creepy, especially when he was staring at her like that. "I'm Mona," she said.

"Hello, Mona," the man said.

Mona made a face. "What's your name," she said.

"Bobby," the man replied, frowning now.

Mona frowned back at him, mirroring his expression. After a moment, she relaxed. "What?" she demanded.

"Do you know which floor the Med Wing is on?" Bobby asked, almost apologetically.

Mona leant across and hit the button for SL-8. "Sub-level," she told him. "Eight for general, nine for special."

"Thanks," he said, grimacing.

"How long have you been a nurse?" Mona asked.

"Twenty-four years," Bobby replied.

"You have really creepy eyes," Mona told him indifferently, and then realised what she'd just said, and blushed.

"I think it's broken," Bobby said, as though she hadn't said anything, and frowned. "Where were you going?"

"SL-5," Mona answered, looking at the floor. Her chin shot up a moment later, green eyes impossibly wide. "Oh, it is not!" she exclaimed.

"I hope not," Bobby said, glancing at her wide-eyed expression and frowning once more.

Mona shook her head. "It so is not!" she told him adamantly.

Bobby laughed.

Mona stared at him in shock. "What's so funny?" she demanded.

Bobby shook his head and didn't say anything.

Mona narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms. The doors opened on SL-5 a moment later and she stepped out, muttering to herself. "Stupid elevator!"

"I'm sorry I laughed at you," Bobby called after her calmly.

"No you're not!" Mona called back without turning, arms still firmly crossed. When he didn't reply, she scowled and whirled about to see that the elevator had moved on, doors closed once more. She scowled again and stomped off toward the coffee machine.

* * *

When Mona returned to Monica's office – Monica-free – she heard the telephone ring and hurried to answer it. "Assistant to Monica Raines, comin' at cha!"

She sat down in Monica's chair and listened to the person on the other end.

Later, she wondered why she even cared that some dumb boy had laughed at her.

She dismissed the thought and wondered what her brothers were doing, and where they were right now. They were so close, yet too far. And suddenly it all came rushing back to her, where she was, what she was doing here, and, most of all, what these people were doing, and she realised why she cared that some dumb boy had laughed at her.

This place and these people were getting to her – and she hadn't even seen anything yet, she thought – and she was attempting to protect herself by replacing one reality with another unreal reality. She was attempting to replace the things that were important with things that weren't important at all.

Tears pooled in her eyes, blurring her vision. She knew what this was called. She knew that her brothers faced the same problems all the time. She wanted to cry, but she knew she had to be strong for them, that she had to be strong for her brothers – that she had to stay focussed if she ever wanted to reunite her family.

If she ever wanted to get out of here alive!

* * *

_After reading that some people get really annoyed about long-winded_ Author's Notes_, I decided to delete them. I guess I could make a it a poll, but what do people think about_ Author's Notes_? No, you know what, I will make a poll._ _I'm thinking aloud here, don't condemn me for it. A poll it is! I need not mention how tricky those things are to write, but -- oh look, and goodness -- just have! This is not a personal attack on you, and the sarcasm is intended soley for myself -- yes I am an odd person._

_Thank you for reading!_


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